Yoji Yamada (山田 洋次 Yamada Yōji, born September 13, 1931 in Toyonaka City, Osaka, Japan) is a Japanese director best known for his Tora-san series of films.
He was born in Osaka. But because of the work of his father, who was an engineer for the South Manchuria Railway, from the age of 2 he was brought up in Manchuria. Following the end of World War II, he came back to Japan and subsequently he lived in Yamagata Prefecture.
After receiving his deg...
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Yoji Yamada (山田 洋次 Yamada Yōji, born September 13, 1931 in Toyonaka City, Osaka, Japan) is a Japanese director best known for his Tora-san series of films.
He was born in Osaka. But because of the work of his father, who was an engineer for the South Manchuria Railway, from the age of 2 he was brought up in Manchuria. Following the end of World War II, he came back to Japan and subsequently he lived in Yamagata Prefecture.
After receiving his degree from Tokyo University in 1954, he entered Shochiku and worked under Yoshitaro Nomura as a scriptwriter or as an assistant director.
He has won many awards throughout his lengthy career and is well-respected in Japan and by critics throughout the world. He wrote his first screenplay in 1958, and directed his first movie in 1961. Yamada continues to make movies to this day.
Known in Japan under the title Otoko wa tsurai yo (男はつらいよ, "It's tough being a man"), his Tora-san series features traveling merchant Torajirō, who is always unlucky in...
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